Thursday, April 24, 2014

Posted by G. R. Bud West
Posted on 4/24/2014 10:54:00 PM
with No comments

Some theorists and other scholars have suggested that leadership exists only as acontextual and non-standardizable phenomenon, due primarily to the contextual nature of the opportunities to employ leadership that have historically emerged. Some members of this same group have also supported the logical conclusion from that premise that because of its contextual nature, no one can adequately define, describe, or explain leadership as a singular concept. Conversely, I posit that leadership more likely exists as a universal, process-type concept that consists of one general set of constructs and that requires its users to possess adequate levels of content knowledge, in order for them to achieve successful outcomes. If this proves true, the potential implications associated with this position include that people who have once learned the actual leadership process should only have to master the job-task contents related to the new assignments, as well as the cultural norms content of the associated organizations, in order to achieve successes. Similarly, those who have served in acknowledged leadership roles and who have succeeded in their initial organizations, failed in subsequent organizations, did not fail because the constructs that constitute leadership differed between the organizations. Rather, they failed because but they did not possess adequate: (a) conceptual understandings of the jobs and (b) cultural understandings of the "new" organizations, broad enough to allow them to succeed.